A conference organized by the Moscow branch of the International Financial Association, the world’s leading 20,000 member organization for the study of international fiscal policy matters, was held at Morgan Stanley’s Moscow office. William Byrnes joined presenters from the tax law faculty of the University of Amsterdam, including Dr. Dennis Weber, Dr. Stef van Weeghel, and Dr. Hein Vermeulen, as well as Bart Zoetmulder from the law firm Loyens and Loeff, Continental Europe’s largest. Byrnes participation included analyzing the impact of various aspects of the forthcoming United States and Russian intergovernmental agreement for automatic financial information exchange.

Professor Byrnes said: “I think that Dr. Dennis Weber, a powerhouse among European Tax Law professors, took notice of my academic work because I am an actual graduate from the University of Amsterdam wherein I studied international tax law and from there I began my international tax career.”

Byrnes continued: “The Amsterdam Centre for Tax Law Director, Dr. Dennis Weber, sponsored by his university, visited Thomas Jefferson’s campus and presented lectures to our residential students on the often overlooked world of international tax management opportunities. After our engaging discussions in Moscow about overlapping mutual opportunities, I am just now working out the logistics for our sponsorship of his return in March for a deeper engagement with the Tax Society, led by 2nd year student Mark Hackman, the 3rd year law students leveraging my publications programs for their career development, and myself to complete discussions exploring the potential to offer a couple joint programs in a hybrid residential-online format.”

Financial University and the University of Amsterdam hosted a conference on emerging international tax issues in the context of the Russian Federation’s tax administration. William Byrnes joined high level presenters from the Ministry of Finance, from the Tax Administration, and tax professors from Financial University and from the University of Amsterdam.

Dr. Weber stated: “Dean Byrnes made a very inspirational speech during the conference. We already asked him if he wants to teach during our new International Tax Law master program in Amsterdam. Our students will like and learn a lot from the way he combines law, tax policy and economics.”

William Byrnes said: “My contribution to this day-long discussion forum was to shed light on alternative perspectives of US tax policy than normally heard by Russian or Dutch tax officials, a role in which I think I succeeded based upon the interest in my presentation. I’ve been asked by my Dutch colleagues for my macro-economic analysis work of tax-regulatory impact as well as information on effective rates resulting from US international tax policy in that it may be useful for current far-reaching legislative developments in their country.”

Dean William Byrnes continued: “I had the most interesting meeting with the Advisor to the Minister of Justice, Yury Zudov, wherein we discussed Orthodox theology in the context of society, the development of law, and also for university education. Before joining the government, Yury Zudov was responsible for international relations for St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University in Moscow, and still serves on its faculty exploring the area of jurisprudence. Southern California, including San Diego, has a sizeable Orthodox population and the newly established Orthodox St. Katherine college, and thus I foresee future opportunities.”

At the firm of Pepeliaev, Professor William Byrnes and Dr. Dennis Weber presented about leveraging hybrid residential / online education to build and maintain firm knowledge-capacity to its founding partner Sergey Pepelieav, its Head of the Tax Practice Group Leonid Kravchinsky, its transfer pricing partner Valentina Akimova, and its Staff Training and Development Manager Larisa Gerasimova. Tax Partner Andrey Tereshchenko agreed to author the Russian chapter contribution in Professor Byrnes forthcoming Second edition of Lexis’ Guide to FATCA Compliance, and the firm will contribute to other of Professor Byrnes Lexis and Wolters Kluwer publications.

William Byrnes’ concluded: “Our week of presentations and meetings ended coincidentally with the opening day of Moscow Fashion Week, which like Rio’s, is a vibrant environment for creative designers and advisors to explore these growth markets.”